This week in Guild Wars 2

This has been a very big week for Guild Wars 2 news, headlined by Colin Johanson’s livestream, interview and huge info-dump on what we should be seeing in GW2 over the rest of 2013. There’s so much discussion of the news that we had to move all the (in-character) Cutthroat Politics news into a separate post.

I’ve been enjoying the Labyrinthine Cliffs far more than I expected to, given my admitted distaste for jumping puzzles and the like. Having the rechargeable jumping/speed skills makes a huge difference. While I probably won’t end up getting the full set of achievements (because you don’t get the temporary skills in jumping puzzles outside the new zone), I’ve already spent more time there than I had planned. Because I don’t expect to get the full achievement, I won’t be able to mine quartz in my home instance … so I’m trying to stockpile as much quartz as I can now, in hopes that I’ll at least be able to do some of the new crafting options once this zone goes away.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun — The Tales of Guild Wars 2. “Remember Guild Wars 2? It is this really pretty MMO that looks sort of bluey-purply like the side of Ben Nevis and has magic in it and stuff. Well anyway, I have totally sussed out their plan. Arenanet want to take over the world by instigating real war via virtual war in Europe. There is no real evidence for this, but it is fact. They sent for me to talk to them about their new episodic story system, Living World, but I stumbled across their sinister machiavellian undertones after too long. Read on for Hard Hitting Journalisms On An MMO Scale.”

GuildWars2.com — Cutthoat Politics. “An assassination has created a vacancy on the Captain’s Council of Lion’s Arch. Two candidates — war hero Ellen Kiel and prominent merchant Evon Gnashblade — both want to occupy that empty seat, but they can’t do it without your support! To prove they have what it takes to sit on the powerful ruling council, Kiel and Gnashblade will compete to secure a lucrative trade agreement with the merchants of the Zephyr Sanctum. Support your favorite candidate as you experience two weeks of new events, activities, features and rewards beginning July 23!”

GuildWars2.com — Whimsical New Items in the Gem Store! “Dealing with the ferocious heat of summer? Still reeling from sky pirate attacks? The Black Lion Trading Company has just the things for you! Celebrate the simple joys in life with our newest offerings, Kites and Flutes! Read on for more details.”

GuildWars2.com — Looking Ahead: Guild Wars 2 in 2013. “In January, we talked about where we wanted Guild Wars 2 to go in 2013. We’re a little over halfway through the year, and we felt it was time to give you an update on where we stand, where we’re going, and discuss in more detail some of the systems you’ll see in the second half of 2013.”

Guild Wars 2 Hub — Colin Johanson Interview: Looking Ahead. “Yesterday I was fortunate enough to snag 30 minutes of Colin Johanson’s time to discuss the content of his latest blog post. Having been given a preview of the blog post several days prior and conscious of the fact 30 minutes isn’t nearly enough, I chose questions I hoped would be a little away from the ‘norm’.”

Recent GuildMag posts

Cutthroat Politics. “As we mentioned earlier due to the death of both Ashford and his second as a result of Dragon Bash and the Flame & Frost war respectively, there’s now a free seat in the council. Both Ellen Kiel and Evon Gnashblade are in the run for this sole seat and YOU will be the one that decides who takes the grand prize! Participate in all-new minigames and other activities during the next two weeks (starting this Tuesday) to collect Support Tokens and coins to bring out your vote in the end.”

Dynamically Spoken Episode 21: The Zenith Point. “Our 21st episode has arrived – and with it, some exciting podcast news! We’re pleased to announce that Friday 26th July at 5:00pm PDT will be the first ever live episode of Dynamically Spoken. In partnership with Sitting On A Couch Gaming, we’ll be bringing our show to you live every Friday over on their Twitch.tv channel. Of course, we’ll still be publishing each episode to the GuildMagYouTube channel and website for those who can’t make it live. But what about this episode? This week we take a look at the Bazaar of the Four Winds patch, including all the new activities on offer, the lore of the Zephyrites, the new Skyhammer sPvP map and much more!”

This week in Cutthoat Politics. “With the historic vote upcoming on filling the vacant seat on the Captain’s Council of Lion’s Arch, we at GuildMag are devoted to providing you with the best coverage of the race. Although we may not take sides in the election, we feel it’s in the best interests of all parties that the campaign be covered honestly and openly. Just kidding … it’s a pirate election: what would honesty have to do with it? This week we’ve got all election coverage for you in one convenient package.”

Fan articles and blog posts

Dragon Season — Speculatory Raiding. “It has been a growing trend, recently, to question and speculate on the future of Guild Wars 2 and the direction of the game. Often times before anything has even been announced officially – the forums, blogsites/fansites and social media go crazy off of one off comment in a sentence that may or may not hold any actual game impacting weight. One thing that piqued my interest as a player…and actually inspired me to write my first ever blog post…was the idea of raiding in Guild Wars 2.”

Kill Ten Rats — Ten Websites All GW2 Players Should Bookmark. “It’s surprising how many people who play Guild Wars 2 know so little about some of the best websites for a game they play countless hours of. In this list, we provide you with ten of the best – that you absolutely have to bookmark (we’ve not included ourselves, though you absolutely should bookmark us!). There are of course more than this, but these are the bookmarks we feel you really shouldn’t live without.”

Guild Wars 2 Hub — Let’s Talk About Achievement Points. “With the new Achievement Point reward system I wanted to sit down with you, my lovely readers, and have a chat about them. Take a seat, enjoy a cookie and some Om Juice with me while I share with you my thoughts.”

Inventory Full — Achievement Fatigue. “Google, a company with which I am increasingly falling out of like, decided overnight to reorganize my mail. They’ve joined the faction to which Feedly also belongs that believes everything is better if you put it in a box. It seems to be a common view amongst designers these days. It’s not a view I share. Both Google and Feedly, however, stand higher in my estimation in this regard than ArenaNet because although those companies might think they know what I want better than I do myself they are at least prepared to let me disagree and bumble on in my own, inefficient, disorganized fashion if that’s what I prefer. Which it is.”

MMO Gypsy — Just can’t get their throat stuffed. “Back from summer break, which I spent castle hunting and aching from bike tours, I was reluctantly excited for the Bazaar of the Four Winds update in GW2 which follows ANet’s recent announcement of aiming for bi-weekly content patches in the future. Yep, that sounds wild – and you’ve heard it here first! Really, it’s a rare thing when a MMO developer goes and fulfills what you’ve wished for specifically on your blog in the past. That has me convinced I need to continue my wishlist category!”

Guild Wars 2 Hub — Editors Lab – Volume Seven. “It’s been a busy time here at the Hub. We’ve a new member of staff who has been with us a good few months and the ArenaNet team are continuing to pump out content quicker than we’ve ever known. What better time than to let you in on what’s happening behind the scenes.”

MMORPG.com — Cutthroat Politics Coming July 23rd! Details Inside! “The fine folks at ArenaNet and NCsoft sent us some political posters and buttons to get the word out about the upcoming July 23rd update: Cutthroat Politics. Along with allowing players to “rock the vote” and choose who will be the new Council member (Evon Gnashblade or Ellen Kiel), a host of new activities and features are being added as well.”

Nerdy Bookahs — Labyrinthine Cliffs. “The latest patch introduced the Labyrinthine Cliffs. This is a region in Maguuma Jungle that is only accessible by boat (you take it in Lion’s Arch). Labyrinthine Cliffs is high up in the air, so there is a lot of jumping. I found it so beautiful that I decided to add it to the screenshot gallery.”

Reddit — Map exploration. “I’ve explored 98% of the map. The only points missing are some Points of Interest and Vistas. Somehow, it still says that I’ve only done 291 out of 301 hearts. How is that possible? I mean there aren’t any hearts in WvW…”

Reddit — New armor models from the dat file. “As you might have seen somebody got hold of some new armor icons from the test server dat file. I took some time to piece together these armors from the current dat file (I don’t mine the dev version, so these are on your computer right now) and have made some renders”

MMORPG.com — Evolution. “The games that seems to last the longest are those that embrace evolution and moving the story forward. In our latest column devoted to Guild Wars 2, we look at what ArenaNet has accomplished in this regard.”

Totally Tyria — History of Tyria: March of the Forgotten. “The Forgotten; the serpent race, protectors of Glint and secrets of the gods. Guiding the young races of Tyria through hardships and primitivity. We know that after they emerged from hiding from the last rise of the dragons, they travelled Tyria, moving across the land and spreading wide. While some did stay with Glint, acting as her custodian and serving her needs, it seemed as if some suffered from wanderlust.”

Reddit — Suggestion: odd jobs in GW cities. “Ok here’s an idea I had that I think has some potential (but might be horrible) — holding jobs in GW cities :-) How would it work? Ok well each major city (on each server) would have a set number of “jobs” that can be filled. The idea is these would be things one does continuously, and as they do this job they earn coin (some rate that would coincide with an average-value farm in terms of gold/hour). So the activites are indefinitely ongoing.”

Inventory Full — All Back To Mine. “Never mind the soul-searching. Bugger Achievements. There was only one reason I spent the entire weekend ticking those sixteen boxes and it wasn’t so I could call myself a Bazaar Ambassador (not that a title wouldn’t have been nice). It was all to get a really, truly, honest-to-betsy mineable node for my Personal Instance.”

Dulfy.net — GW2 Gemstore Kites. “Pictures and video of the GW2 Kites that can be purchased from the gem store and also obtained as a Thank you Gift from Arenanet for purchasing gems between April 1 and June 30.”

Healing the masses — All Aboard the Blackgate Bandwagon. “Well are rambunctious crew of raiders have once again departed from barren lands looking for greener pastures to pillage in. Jade Quarry, for a number of reasons was no longer fun to be on anymore.. Hmm not that, as we still had some times of immense fun, more that it was no longer enjoyable for our group. Staying in tier 1 was the main option as we didn’t want to go down just to dominate, and out of the 2 we picked Blackgate, we have joked about Stackgate between ourselves before and now we are one of them. In the end if come down to knowing some of the guild there from our fights in other games and here we are.”

Reddit — All my Knowledge – Ranger Guide Part 1 – Basic Tips. “I’m writing this guide in response to this thread. A lot of people expressed interest in a ranger guide and some more information on them. I’ve played ranger for most of the game now, close to 1400 hours over 2 characters (yes, I have two rangers, both 80, both geared) across all aspects of the game (PvE, WvW, PvP). My goal with this guide series to help people understand the ranger profession as a whole and hopefully trim down on the “Why aren’t they out of the game yet” banter. I am certainty not the best ranger, but I know more than enough to comfortably write these guides.”

On the official Guild Wars 2 forums, DiogoSilva.7089 posted on the topic Story, Immersion, Cooperation, Challenge: “Four pillars that can greatly enhance the player’s interest and investment on a game. The fifth would be: Competition; and the sixth, perhaps: Grinding. I’m unsure if Reward counts, because players like to be rewarded (or, in broader terms, satisfied) by what they do, be it grinding or following the story, be it helping the community or doing challenging content. I’d say Reward/ Satisfaction is the consequence of work + pleasure, and and those should be inherent to any of the other five pillars.”

Guild Wars 2 Hub — Upcoming Living Story: Cutthroat Politics. “On July 23rd ArenaNet will be giving us the newest installment of their Living Story called “Cutthroat Politics”. What we’ll see in this content update is two new mini-games,a new WvW skill mastery and (most importantly) new meta events that will allow players, as a whole, to change the future of the Guild Wars 2 story and potential rewards that go along with it!”

Massively — Flameseeker Chronicles: Guild Wars 2‘s living whirl. “Hi there! I’m Anatoli Ingram, and starting today I’ll be your friendly neighborhood Flameseeker Chronicles columnist. Some of you probably know me from my previous life as commenter RingBonefield, but thanks to the kindness and pure heart power of the Massively lead editors, I’ve evolved into my final form: a guy who not only won’t shut up about Guild Wars 2 but gets paid to not shut up about Guild Wars 2.”

Massively — Guild Wars 2 developer livestream chat discusses the fine art of world improvement. “ArenaNet’s Game Director Colin Johanson sat down with Community Manager Martin Kerstein to talk about the future of Guild Wars 2 and answer some questions from the community in the latest developer livestream. Johanson confirmed that while players won’t be confronting another Elder Dragon this year, there will be three new Fractals of the Mists joining the lineup: fractalized versions of the popular living story dungeons Molten Weapons Facility and Aetherblade Retreat, as well as one of two brand new scenarios to be chosen for development based on the outcome of the upcoming Cutthroat Politics content.”

Reddit — All my Knowledge – Ranger Guide Part 2 – Early Levels and starting off. “Nice work, hero, you’ve just slayed a worm, killed that rubix cube golem thing or saved an entire village from centaurs and/or ghosts (or you did that weird thing with dreams… was that even real? Does that even count?). You and your trusty pet find yourself out in the middle of no where starter-ville with nothing but an axe in your hand. Great, you have an axe, that’s not very ranger like, now is it?”

Why I Game — Shaping History With Your Vote. “So, all the latest excitement both in-game in Lion’s Arch and in the Guild Wars 2 Reddit is the discussion about whether one is in #TeamGnashblade or #TeamKiel for the upcoming update of Cutthroat Politics. Before we get partisan here, I’d just want to point out that this is an exciting development in player involvement with the Living Story. It harkens back to when one was given the choice to vote for Dwayna or Grenth in Guild Wars 1 in order to get a shiny hat, but a lot deeper.”

Guild Wars 2 Hub — Speedy Reader and Cleaning Up the Neighborhood Achievements. “With these new rewards coming in for our Achievement Points, it goes without saying we need to cover some of those more tedious tasks in order to net you all the pieces of special skins you can get! Here we’ll discuss two of the achievements tied to Ebonhawke: Speedy Reader and Cleaning Up the Neighborhood.”

Reddit — Memories. “It has almost been a year since we all officially set out on our adventures across Tyria. I wanted to commemorate the occasion with a tribute to what was, for me, one of the most touching moments and one of the.most endearing characters. I hope you all enjoy and maybe share your favorite memory from year 1. Memory of an Apple Vendor“

Reddit — Wishful thinking on improving the gear/appearance setup. “Despite some steps to improve the situation with the special functionality for achievement unlocks, I feel Arenanet have painted themselves into a corner, and don’t take a coherent and player-friendly approach to what is a big part of the game, the cosmetic system. So here is a few ideas that will likely need a big change to the current systems, and thus likely to not happen (but I’m hoping to be surprised).”

Twitter — @DragonSeasonCom. “Something that I wanted to mention for some time now. Criticising a game doesn’t make you a bad person or someone dull. ~Tilion (1/2)”

Twitter — @DragonSeasonCom. “On the other hand you may want to see that game getting even better. So, go on and unfollow us if you don’t like our attitude. ~Tilion (2/2)”

Massively — Guild Wars 2‘s Colin Johanson outlines big plans and ‘course correction’ for the game. “The past two weeks have seen a veritable flood of information about ArenaNet’s plans for the immediate future of Guild Wars 2, but are you ready for even more details about the long-term goals for the title? Well, ready or not, it’s comin’ at you: Game Director Colin Johanson published a blog post today that outlines some of the features and changes players can expect to see in the latter half of the year. Curious about ANet’s answer to character progression after the release of Ascended gear? The blog post has it covered. Tired of beating up Champion enemies for their lunch money, only to find that their moms packed them nothing but pairs of blue-quality trousers? Read up on how ANet plans to make them worth smacking around. Do you spend your days weeping softly over that 600 gold precursor that is the absolute last thing you need to complete your Legendary weapon? Boy oh boy, today is your lucky day.”

Under the Pale Tree — A peek at the future. “Today we got a long-awaited blog post, letting us know where ArenaNet is taking Guild Wars 2 through the end of the year. To put it mildly, I am pleased. I’ve seen a few complaints on twitter, but for the most part, the reaction is positive, and I personally am very happy. New permanent additions to the Living World. Champion reward revamps. Dungeon reward revamps. NEW CRAFTING TIERS

Twitter — @DragonSeasonCom. “We are going to get new WvW maps “sooner than we may think”! https://t.co/E9bsD2kA7v ~Tilion #RedPosts”

MMORPG.com — ArenaNet’s Master Plan for 2013. “Yesterday I had the chance to catch up with Guild Wars 2’s Game Director Colin Johanson to talk about the metric buttload of an update he put out via the official Guild Wars 2 site today. In short, there is a whole lot of new stuff coming to Tyria before the end of 2013 and I’m fairly certain you’ll have a hard time arguing with any of the additions. Unless of course you don’t like free features and content… then I guess you’ll hate this little article. Before we dive into the bits of Colin’s blog that we talked about on our call, let me give you a handy-dandy bullet point list detailing the many new things coming to GW2 in the latter half of the year.”

On the official Guild Wars 2 forums, proteininja.5891 posted on the topic A Dungeon Rewards Solution: “This solution is quite complicated, but I believe it will balance dungeon wards while encouraging the farming of all paths. First, Arenanet will need to implement speed running leaderboards for each dungeon path. These leaderboards will record the fastest path completion times for each dungeon. After this list is in place Arenanet uses the values of these boards to balance the rewards based on completion time.”

Greibach’s Normal Form — Quality of Life. “There’s a new blog post today. I’m going to assume that anyone reading this blog has read it already, but in case you haven’t, check it out. The major theme of this post was quality of life. There have been a lot of things that have been frustrating much of the dedicated player base with regard to end-game elements and time:reward ratios. It was a huge info-dump, which as coincidence would have it is my favorite type of info-dump. Colin talked about everything ranging from Living Story, new character progression, new crafting, crafting precursors and ascended gear, WvW, magic find, dungeons, champion rewards, and some casual mentions of PvP and expanding into new markets. While I have thoughts on all of these things, I’m going to limit this post to discussing crafting and magic find. While I am fairly excited for new skills and traits, there isn’t a lot of meat to get into there.”

Guild Wars 2 Live — Looking Ahead: Guild Wars 2 in 2013. “Colin Johanson revealed huge changes coming to Guild Wars 2. You should go and read it all now. Afterwards, sit back and think about what this all means. There is a lot of great news there and having that knowledge is going to affect how you play next time you log into the game.”

Of Course I’ll Play It — Guild Wars 2 Living Story So Far – Part 1. “So if you’re playing Guild Wars 2, and I would image that if you’re here then you are, then by now you’re quite familiar with ArenaNet’s experimental, and somewhat controversial methodology of rolling out their content – the Living Story. Personally I’m a huge fan of the attempt, and it has done a pretty good job of keeping me hooked in a game that I otherwise might not have been. But it’s not been without it’s share of criticism, and a significant amount of the criticism relates to the story itself.”

Gamebreaker.tv — A Ton Of Guild Wars 2 Updates Are On The Way. “Colin Johanson took some time yesterday to look back at the goals he set forth at the beginning of the year and let us know some more details about what Guild Wars 2 updates we have to look forward to in the second half of the year. He covered many topics including permanent vs temporary content, crafting, updates to legendary systems, skill and trait expansion, and more. So let’s take a look at some of these topics.”

Reddit — SUMMARIZED. Looking Ahead: GW2 in 2013. “Tried to bullet the main points of all the articles coming out about ArenaNet’s announcements regarding the rest of 2013. Thought I could make it short, guess not. Please tell me if I have anything wrong or if I’m missing any big points!”

Reddit — PSA: Endless Halloween Tonics can be made tradable/sellable now. “Used to be a bug with the Endless Halloween Tonics that made the majority of them account bound and unable to be listed on TP. There’s been a recent “fix” by anet that converts yours into a sellable version. Problem is that they did not release a PSA about it, thus the majority of the account bound tonic holders still are not aware of this.”

Reddit — End game reflections. “So, since the latest blog post, I thought I would write down a few of my reflections on the constantly brought up topic of GW2‘s endgame. I want to start by defining endgame as something that provides some serious content to do once you have leveled, usually in order to progress your character to be the best it can be.”

Reddit — Which materials are likely to be the most affected by Colin’s interview? “It’s not quite clear whether the molten cores and lodestones are going to be dropping in supply considering that CoF p1 is still the easiest dungeon path to run. If players are not going to receive coin from killing Slave Driver and the last boss, but will receive a chest that has a chance to drop lodestones, my personal opinion is, it will mitigate to a certain extent the decline in supply of molten cores.”

YouTube — SOACGaming: Guild Wars 2 Elementalist Podcast: Attunement Swap – Episode 6 – Part 1 of 3. “In this week’s edition of Attunement Swap, Zoose and Aiden talk dungeons with one of the top Dungeon Elementalists out there, they fight through multiple disconnects to get you one amazing show. They talk PVE trinity, and some of the most amazing things with the game!”

Guild Wars Reporter — Episode 68 – Activate Hypnotoad. “Chris and Celeste talk about their Bazaar of the Four Winds experiences, go into some heavy lore with a new short story, and dissect the interview episode that we released this week.”

SOAC — The GW2 Mesmer Podcast: Mesmerized: WillowBreeze. “Welcome to Mesmerized, our Mesmer only podcast! This week our two hosts, Kylia Deprigen and Pyroatheist invite WillowBreeze to have a chat about his build, his time in GW2, sPvP, Guardians converting to Mesmers and lots lots more!”

SOAC — Guild Wars 2 Engineer Podcast: Engenious – Episode 8. “In this episode of Engenious, are we sitting down and discussing sPvP with Nakoda, a diehard Flamethrower lover! We disucss it’s uses in sPvP, talk about his build and which utility skills are the best in sPvP at the moment!”

YouTube — Ceimash: CeiMash’s Guides: The Shroudmancer; Necro Deathshroud Build. “This week I take a look at a Necro Deathshroud Build and the different ways that I would specc such a build. The build is quite sturdy in it’s DPS iteration but even sturdier in it’s tanky iteration.”

SOAC — Guild Wars 2 Necromancer Podcast: But of Corpse – Episode 22. “In this episode of But of Corpse, The minion runner himself Bhawb gets to talk minion tournament play with High Warlord Sikari. They talk death shroud healing, necro support mechanics, and the future of Necromancers.”

Fanfic

A Tyrian Odyssey — Bazaar of the Four Winds. “With the news of the Zephyr Sanctum’s arrival, Captain Magnus told Ellen Kiel to secure a trade agreement with them. If successful, she’d land a spot on the Captain’s Council. No one has ever convinced the Zephyrites to trade with Lion’s Arch before. Kiel’s already difficult task was made harder, by another rival for the Captain’s Council seat; Evon Gnashblade, the leader of the Black Lion Company.”

A Tyrian Odyssey — Divinity’s Reach. “Founded after the flooding of Lion’s Arch when Orr rose from the seas, Divinity’s Reach is the last great human city. It’s filled with the human descendants of Ascalon, Kryta, Cantha, Elona and even Orr (not that they publicly acknowledge it). The walled city has two levels, and is shaped like a wheel that’s divided into six main districts. Each of the districts are separated by main roads devoted to the each god. Queen Jennah, ministers, and other important figures meet at the heart of Divinity’s Reach in the Central Plaza.”

Community Events

MMORPG.com — Invitational and Regional Qualifying Tournaments. “ArenaNet and MMORPG.com have teamed up to bring the world the first Guild Wars 2 Invitational and Regional Qualifying Tournaments that will take place during PAX Prime in August. With $10,000 in prize money, the competition should be fierce.”

GW2 Guru — Screenshot of the Week: Round 2. “After a very successful introduction, we’re ready to announce the first Screenshot of the Week and get started on round two. As a reminder for those who weren’t around last week, simply post a screenshot that fits the theme of the week for a chance to win a custom forum title and eternal glory on the front page. “Likes” can be used to highlight an exceptional image, but doesn’t always equal a win. Each thread ends at 11:59 PM PST every Saturday night.”

GameSkinny — [Contest Alert] The Best Dressed Character in Guild Wars 2. “Guild Wars 2 players have been finding, crafting, and perfecting their outfits for nearly a full year, turning a walk down the busy streets of Lion’s Arch into a riotous display of color, fabric and sheer fabulousness. Think you’ve got the best outfit in Tyria? Prove it and you could win big for showing off your threads.”

Thermaltake — Guild Wars 2 APAC Tournament. “Guild Wars 2 is the most successful MMORPG since August 2012, and also becomes one of the most popular e-sports online game. There are many Guild Wars 2 tournaments already hosted in United States & Europe, so we want to host an APAC based tournament for gamers in this area, as what Thermaltake Technology does usually. It’s time for all GW2 gamers to prove your ability as well as a great opportunity to win the best gaming gears in the GW2 APAC Tournament!”

This section is intended to help you to publicize your guild or alliance event, and as long as your event is open to the whole Guild Wars/Guild Wars 2 community, we’ll list it here. Send us the details at community@www.guildmag.com and we’ll get it out to the fan community (given that we only do a weekly wrap-up, try to send the information at least a week in advance).